


A child's cold duty

by JoAsakura



Series: Blood and Fire [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 15:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2353685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the little hawke grows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A child's cold duty

Leandra always felt a stab of guilt when she watched her firstborn play.

He was six, and they had moved from one chasind village to another, dependent on Malcom’s shady network of cousins six-times removed to house and clothe them. Denerim was out of the question, she knew, Amaranthine no better. She was hardly ungrateful, but she longed for a home that wasn’t quite so… raw. A home where there might be a library, a place to buy finer cloth for their clothes.

A place that didn’t smell chasind.

At six, Gavin was already on his way to becoming a chasind stalker, she feared, his face freshly marked with Malcom’s seventh-cousin six times removed Clan’s tattoos as he tracked a rabbit, giggling softly with himself as he moved. She was pregnant, so heavy with child she thought it twins, and couldn’t keep up with him as he ran.

She’d asked him once, who he talked to, when he played alone with his doll of sticks and yarn, an he would always look to the empty space to his left and then back at her as if she was the silliest of old hens. “Jason, Mama.” He said, going back to his quiet games. “He’s me twin.”

That day, Malcom took him out for herbs to help the pregnancy with, and when they returned, charred and spattered with blood, the look on his his face told her she should never ask why.

She didn’t know why any of that made her so uncomfortable until Carver and Bethany were born.

Carver squirmed at her breast while his sister slept in her basket and Leandra adjusted the boy. Their dark thatches of hair and round smiling faces never failed to bring her joy. A joy the skinny boy with the autumn-red hair and sad blue eyes, the boy with his imaginary twin never did.

"I’ve found a way for us north." Malcom slid behind her with a kiss.

"Dearest." She started, touching his face as she cradled Carver. "I just want to give them a chance at a normal life."

"They will, I promise." He said. "Now, if you excuse me, I will be taking my eldest here and we will go find some supper."

~~

At eight years old, Gavin fell ill with a fever that had no seeming cause.

No one realised that hundreds of miles to the north, a sickness had swept the Cousland keep, nearly killing the foundling they’d taken in as their own years before.

 

~~

Gavin was fourteen by the time they came to Lothering. He already towered over Malcom, although Carver at seven was already showing signs he was due for a growth spurt.

It was small and dirty as any Fereldan town, but the Chantry was mostly apathetic, as were the few templars stationed there, and Malcom was too ill to travel any longer.

It was like the wasting disease, and no poultice or potion or prayer had much effect. What little healing magic the former combat mage had been able to teach himself had little as well. And her tiny face scrunched in study, it was clear that the skills Bethany had been born with leaned towards elemental - not that it would matter.

When Malcom had no longer been able to earn them coin as a mercenary, Gavin had taken up where he could. His skills as a tracker and a hunter found them food. His skills as a stalker brought them coin and goods that Leandra had the good sense to not ask the provenance of. His arms were an archer’s - slim and hard-muscled, and he stepped silently, chasind knives at his hips to do what an arrow couldn’t. As he grew older, and Malcom ever weaker, when there was no food to hunt or fools to rob, that lean, feral beauty- Malcom’s eyes in a face that was neither parent’s, found a particular popularity with some segments of the Fereldan army garrison not far from town.

The first time he came home with coin in his pocket and a chest full of hickeys and scratches, his mother struck him and looked him hard in the eyes. “You are an Amell.” She hissed under her breath. “Not a common whore. What will your siblings learn when they find out that you bought their food from a soldier’s way with your ass?”

"It’s the first time you’ve called me an Amell, Mother." He said sadly, leaving the money on the rough-hewn table.

~~

"Come walk with me." The dying mage said, his staff more a walking-stick than a weapon, now. "Just one last time."

"I’ll protect them." Gavin said, his arm locked with Malcom’s as they rounded the outer roads of Lothering. "Bethany is smart. She’s learned so much, and she knows how to keep out of the Templar’s eyes." He paused. "Carver is stupid, but he tries." he added with a laugh. "I’ll keep them all safe, Father."

"Keep yourself safe, too. You worry so much about others, you don’t take time for yourself." Malcom patted the boy’s arm, feeling the cabled strength beneath the skin. He stopped then, and touched his son’s face, the old chasind tattoo faded beneath his sunburnt skin. "And don’t give in to the fire in your blood. "

"Even mother says I don’t have a bad temper, Father… what…?" Gavin started and Malcom’s shaking hand gripped him tighter.

"Promise me." the mage hissed and his son could only nod.

Gavin smiled, for once, it reached his sad eyes as he took his father’s fragile form in his arms. “I promise father. I won’t.”

~~

Ostagar.

He had only joined the ranks of King Cailan’s army because Carver had already done so. “Go protect your brother.” Leandra had ordered. “Bethany and I will be fine here. We’re not helpless.”

He bowed his head and felt the hardness of her gaze on him. “Of course I’ll protect him.”

That was easier said than done as the darkspawn overran the ruins and the dying overtook the living. His arrows long expended, Gavin danced amongst the creatures, his only goal to keep Carver in his sight as the brash young man swung his massive blade through their foes.

They were going to die. He knew it in his bones. So much blood, the earth was slick with it, it seeped into his boots and stained his clothes. Some of it was his and most of it wasn’t and somewhere, deep inside, the need to protect Carver turned into something else.

At first he thought it was the sight of his comrades, dead and dying, that pushed him onwards, fighting his way to Carver’s side. But it was more than that. The further he waded in, dual blades cutting a path, the better he felt, the faster the gouges on his own skin faded, the stronger he was.

Until he saw the hurlock, dead and putrid grey, it’s crossbow raised to the back of his unsuspecting brother’s head. “STOP!” Gavin roared, the blood pumping in his ears. And it did, before turning and shooting another darkspawn instead.

He’d grabbed Carver and retreated long before he saw the thing explode in a shower of gore.

~~

Gavin wiped ineffectually at the blood on his face as Carver clutched the hilt of his blade to fight back his sobs.

(Don’t give in to the fire in your blood.) Malcom’s voice rang in his ears.

(Protect him) his mother’s responded.

He knew what he had to do.


End file.
